PBEB Board Candidate Bios

Nikki Beasely joined the RNHS in 2016 after retiring from a 25-year career in banking and financial services. Although new to housing, she had a strong affinity to community and service. Because of her leadership RNHS has doubled its property management rental portfolio for low to moderate income families through multifamily acquisitions, established the organization's Changing the Narrative of Homeownership Initiative, started the Lender Ready program in 2017 assisting over 100 new first time home buyers secure ownership, established RNHS Money Matters series which the organization host monthly, and became a small site infill developer in 2018.

RNHS has also become a staple in the housing conversation throughout the Bay Area and region advocating for tenant and landlord rights, consumer affairs, fair housing, working with municipalities to address zoning and creating equable programs for its residents. Through the organization's mission and focus to lift up homeownership as a tool to addressing housing need(s), the work began as RNHS launched its Filbert Promise Homeownership project in 2018. This acquisition started the organization’s conversation and advocacy around uncoupling race and income related to the lack of subsidy for production of homeownership projects targeting 80- 120 % AMI addressing the wealth gap and disparity in communities of color. This development project has sparked a new initiative that Nikki has launched in 2020, the Emerging Developers Program, assisting Black developers, addressing the barriers new developers face in securing projects.

Elissa Dennis is active in local and statewide housing and community development issues. She served on the board of directors of East Bay Housing Organizations including four years as president. She was a founder and longtime board member of People’s Community Partnership (now Self Help) Federal Credit Union. She served several terms on the Housing California board, including time as treasurer. She is currently serving on the boards of California Coalition for Rural Housing and California Tax Reform Association.

Before moving to California for her master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA, she worked as a community organizer in Austin, Texas and a newspaper reporter in Boston, Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Cornell University.

Bio coming soon.

In her role as a nurse, Jennifer Esteen has served the most vulnerable adults in San Francisco. Those who have been directly affected by the impact of poverty, marginalization and oppression. Jennifer was educated at Loyola University New Orleans and Samuel Merritt University in Oakland and has taught as an adjunct nursing instructor in the Bay Area, to help educate the nurse leaders of tomorrow. Jennifer was appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to serve as a member of the the Housing Conservatorship Working group in San Francisco, she also serves on the Eden Area Municipal Advisory Council, and was appointed by Alameda County Board of Supervisor, Nate Miley. Jennifer is working as the Vice President of Organizing for SEIU 1021, serves on the SEIU 1021 Executive Board and previously held a position as a board member of the Jewish Youth for Community Action.

Paulina Gonzalez-Brito (they/them/elle) identifies as Xicane, Purepecha, Mestize. Their great-grandparents were Mexican Arizona copper miners who took part in the historic Metcalf-Greenlee strikes in the early 1900s and whose father was an immigrant union hotel worker. Paulina has dedicated more than 20 years of their life to leading economic justice organizing campaigns to expand worker rights, immigrant rights, and the rights of low-income and underrepresented communities of color.

Under their leadership, CRC has expanded its work to directly challenge systemic and structural racism within the U.S. financial system and to focus CRC’s work on building collective political and organizing power amongst and with frontline communities to close the racial wealth gap.

Lauren Leimbach has a wide-ranging background in new financial product/service development, automation and payment systems, marketing strategy, operational

implementation, production management, and organizational planning. Under her direction, CFR worked with community organizations, social service

agencies, government entities, and labor to improve the access of low-to-moderate income households to consumer-friendly financial products—including a low-cost prepaid debit card, credit builder products, and alternatives to payday lending. Lauren also provides organizations consulting support on program development and execution including banking platforms to improve organizational performance. Lauren has a BA in Economics and an MBA in Finance from the University of Michigan.

Bio coming soon.

Alison Lingane’s passion for creating an economy that works for everyone was fueled in her early career by her role designing and leading micro-enterprise programs for urban youth.

Prior to launching Project Equity, Alison held executive roles at mission-driven businesses that are designed to have human impact at scale. She brings those scaling lessons back full circle to her work at Project Equity, turning businesses into community change agents through employee ownership.

Alison founded and co-manages the Employee Ownership Catalyst Fund and leads capital initiatives for Project Equity, having raised nearly $8M in capital to finance employee ownership transitions. She also launched Project Equity’s work partnering with over a dozen cities, counties and other government agencies throughout California and the U.S.

Alison has her B.A. from Harvard University and her MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where she co-founded what is now the Global Social Venture Competition, the largest international business plan competition for double or triple bottom line businesses. She has been selected as an Echoing Green Fellow, an Aspen Institute Job Quality Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow.

Bio coming soon.

At Paceline, Vinod Paniker is building the next generation financial services platform that rewards people for healthy behavior.

Before joining Paceline, Vinod was the Head of Product Management, Marketing Platforms at Prudential Financial, a Fortune 50 company. In this key role, he focused on leveraging technology, AI, and ML to help build the next generation digital marketing capabilities for Prudential. Vinod also headed Prudential’s Silicon Valley campus. With over 25 years of professional experience, Vinod is skilled in product management, product development, software engineering, and management leadership in the FinTech and Financial Services domain.

Before joining Prudential, Vinod was co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Söoryen Technologies, where he championed the delivery of FinTech products and services to a wide variety of companies, including start-ups and major industry players like MyVest and Cetera. Before Söoryen, Vinod was Vice President of Engineering at Pricelock, focusing on building a revolutionary platform in the energy segment. He also spent over a decade at E*TRADE, where he held various positions of increasing responsibility, most notably leading E*TRADE’s Retail brokerage projects as Director of Software Engineering. Vinod holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Mumbai, India.

Royl Roberts began his career in finance and property & casualty insurance and has worked for Fortune 500 companies. Royl has held various leadership positions in both the private and public sector, as well as working in an Employment and Civil Rights Law Firm. After law school, Mr. Roberts transitioned to the public sector where he has held positions in operations, risk management and employee relations. Most recently, Mr. Roberts has held executive level positions as Chief of Staff and General Counsel. Mr. Roberts graduated with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Our Lady of the Lake University, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Golden Gate University, School of Law with a Specialization Certificate in Business Law with Distinction. Mr. Roberts has also completed Doctoral work in Business Administration at Saint Mary’s College of California. Mr. Roberts has taught classes as an adjunct instructor in the subjects of business, business law, strategy, and problem-solving. Finally, Royl is an active and/or elected member in other fraternal and civic organizations.

Bio coming soon.

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